Policy Round Up: Security

Shanel AdamsShanel Adams is an editorial assistant with GlobalPolicy.tv. She is a public relations major, political science minor at Howard University originally from Detroit. Shanel is passionate about poverty alleviation and political participation.

President Barack Obama gave a speech on counterterrorism yesterday. In the speech he suggested that the War on Terror was coming to an end but with little indication of when. He also addressed other security issues such as adding more restrictions to the use of drones overseas.

This week’s speech by the President sheds light on security issues in and outside of the country. It also shares policy related to counterterrorism and how the Obama administration aims to fix problems surrounding international security.

“Obama claims he tried to close GTMO but he eliminate the special envoy for closing GTMO and effectively stopped talking about the issue in any public addresses – until the hunger strike. Remarkably, Obama tries to blame Congress for preventing the transfer of detainees to other countries, yet just minutes later in the same speech he admits it was his administration that put the moratorium on transfers to Yemen. Roughly, a third of of the prisoners held are from Yemen.I believed Obama back in 2008 when he made these promise the first time, but I stopped believing him because of his actions. Obama has gone out of his way to prove that words are cheap, actions are what matters. You should never be trusted when making the same promise again after breaking it once. Obama needs to actually deliver or stop talking.”

“Obama also promised to “engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorists without keeping America on a perpetual war-time footing“ and threatened to veto any proposal that expanded this war. Obama has failed to make good on such veto threats in the past, and he made no mention of the Iraq AUMF, which remains in force two and a half years after the last troops were withdrawn from Iraq. So it remains to be seen whether his stated commitment to rework the AUMF will survive the political difficulties it has not in the past.”

The speech, then, was not only notable for what the president said. It was notable — primarily notable — for the fact that he said it. The danger of the Lethal Presidency has always been its assurance that its killings are moral because they are accomplished by moral men. And so what critics of the president’s drone policy might have hoped from yesterday’s speech was that he would not merely portray himself as a moral man but rather offer to do the moral thing and submit to legal structures outside himself and the power of his office. He did some of that, saying that he asked his administration to “review” the feasibility of “a special court to evaluate and authorize legal action” or “the establishment of an independent oversight board in the executive branch.” He also said that he was declassifying information pertaining to the four Americans killed by drone strike and promised not to sign any bill that would extend the Authorization for Use of Military Force. But mostly he did what he so often does, at his best and at his worst, using his own moral standing to advance an overarching moral vision instead of a simply political one — in this case, the end of the “war on terror” that he did not invent but has done so much to amplify and advance.”